The Atlanta Hawks center challenged a heckler to a fight Sunday at Staples Center after his team’s 109-94 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. TMZ shared video of the incident, in which viewers can hear the heckler call Howard the “B” word and the eight-time NBA All-Star responds with a challenge.

Howard spent the 2012-13 season with the Los Angeles Lakers before leaving for the Houston Rockets. After two seasons in Houston, he joined Atlanta, his hometown team, last summer. Sunday’s game was Howard’s first visit to Staples Center this season.

The bad feelings from his ill-fated time in Los Angeles still linger. Apparently, the feelings are mutual.

Nick Young isn’t afraid to take a big late-game shot, even if it means basically stealing the ball from his teammate.

The Los Angeles Lakers guard made another big shot Tuesday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder, but how he got the ball in his hands in the first place is actually pretty comical.

The Lakers, trailing by a point with just seconds to play in the fourth quarter, ran a play that looked designed to create an opening at the top of the key. The Lakers ran the play to perfection with Brandon Ingram finding an open Louis Williams outside the 3-point arc.

That’s when Young stepped in — literally. He ran right in front of Williams, intercepting the pass (while also “returning” it roughly 10 yards without a dribble) and knocking down the go-ahead 3-pointer.

The Lakers were able to hold onto the lead, winning the game and improving to 8-7. The Lakers have another big one Wednesday night, as they look to knock off the vaunted Golden State Warriors for the second time this season.

NBA Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Jordan and legendary Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully all were honored by President Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday.

The ceremony included a long list of celebrities, including Robert De Niro, Robert Redford, Bruce Springsteen and Ellen Degeneres. President Obama cracked jokes throughout his speech, including refering to MJ as “the guy from Space Jam.”

NESN.com’s Rachel Holt has the full details on the ceremony in the video above.

If you’re like some of us, you’re probably sick of the bickering on both sides of the aisle during this U.S. presidential campaign. Allow us to introduce a third party candidate: Metta World Peace.

World Peace — or the artist formerly known as Ron Artest — got into the presidential spirit on Election Day by creating his own hashtag, #ifmettawaspresident, that described a world in which he’s our Commander in Chief.

If anything, the Los Angeles Lakers forward is known for being an entertainer, and his string of tweets didn’t disappoint.

Today is hashtag day .#ifmettawaspresident I would make it mandatory for referees in each sport to play their respective sport once a week

It’s safe to say Luke Walton’s first meeting against his former team went pretty well.

The Los Angeles Lakers coach, who used to be an assistant coach for Golden State, led his team to a 117-97 blowout win over the Warriors on Friday at Staples Center. The Lakers improved to 3-3, while the Dubs dropped to 4-2.

Warriors star Stephen Curry also ended his streak of 196 games with at least one 3-pointer, as he went 0-for-10 from long range.

“That was a cool little ride,” Curry said, per USA TODAY. “Would have loved to finish my career making one every game, but hey, start a new one. What was it, like two years? Kind of weird not to make one, but I will keep shooting.”

“We’re looking at the big picture,” Walton said, via the Los Angeles Times. “The big picture isn’t beating Golden State and losing Sunday night at home. The big picture is we make it really hard for teams to come into Staples Center and win. The big picture is we did what we’re supposed to do. We won at home.”

One night after the big Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook faceoff, the Warriors will head to Los Angeles for a matchup with former assistant coach Luke Walton and the Lakers at Staples Center.

Walton, now the head coach of the Lakers, was a Warriors assistant for two seasons, including in their NBA Championship-winning 2014-15 campaign. Now he’s tasked with turning things around for L.A., which is easier said than done after three straight seasons of missing the playoffs.

The good news for the Lakers (2-3), though, is they finally are back home after four straight games on the road. The bad news? The NBA’s latest mega team will be on the opposite side of the court one night after a dominant 122-96 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Then there’s this: Metta World Peace, the 36-year-old Los Angeles Lakers veteran, says he was inappropriately touched by a ghost at the notoriously haunted Skirvin Hotel in Oklahoma City during L.A.’s recent road trip to OKC.

Seriously.

Metta World Peace said a ghost touched him inappropriately at the famously haunted Skirvin Hotel, where the Lakers stayed the past 2 nights.

Weird as this might sound, he’s not the first NBA player to complain of being visited by a ghost at the Skirvin. There’s actually a detailed history of the Skirvin being haunted, and there’s more than one report of a female ghost conducting some sexually inappropriate behavior with her male guests.

What kind of ghost would touch Metta World Peace inappropriately? Well, that’s well within the M.O. of “Effie,” a former housekeeper who purportedly loves to mess with guests staying at the hotel.

Hotel records do not show any history of a housekeeper named Effie working at the Skirvin, but ghost proponents claimed her grizzly death was swept under the rug. Now she roams the halls and rooms. Effie is characterized as “playful,” typically rattling doorknobs, crying out in the night or propositioning men in their rooms.

However, more serious claims have been leveled, as well. Several men claim she appeared naked in the shower with them without being invited, while at least one former guest claims they were sexually assaulted by Effie — much like Metta World Peace.

The Golden State Warriors somehow got better after a record-setting 73-win season by adding superstar Kevin Durant, giving them ridiculous 2-3 odds win the 2017 NBA title and avenge last season’s bitter Finals loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

So, why should we even play the 2016-17 regular season? Turns out there are plenty of reasons, as the Western Conference is loaded with intriguing storylines like Russell Westbrook’s Vengeance Tour in Oklahoma City and an assembling of incredible young talent in Minnesota.

How will the West shake out? Let’s break it down by division, with each team’s projected 2016-17 record and overall finish in the West in parentheses.

2. Los Angeles Clippers (52-30; 3rd)Key Additions:Brandon Bass (free agency), Marreese Speights (free agency)Key Departures: NoneSkinny: The Clippers have won 53-plus games in four consecutive seasons yet haven’t advanced past the second round in any of them. There’s a good chance that streak extends to five.

3. Sacramento Kings (34-48, 12th)Key Additions: Georgios Papagiannis (draft)Key Departures:Rajon Rondo (free agency)Skinny:The Kings have a brand new arena and a new head coach in Dave Joerger. Outside that, there’s not much to get excited about in Sacramento outside watching DeMarcus Cousins drop double-doubles every night.

4. Los Angeles Lakers (26-56, 13th)Key Additions:Brandon Ingram (draft), Timofey Mozgov (free agency)Key Departures:Kobe Bryant (retirement)Skinny: Year One of Life Without Kobe should be entertaining, at least: We get to see what D’Angelo Russell can do, if Brandon Ingram can live up to the hype and why the heck the Lakers paid Mozgov $64 million.

SOUTHWEST DIVISION1. San Antonio Spurs (55-27, 2nd)Key Additions:Pau Gasol(free agency), David Lee (free agency)Key Departures:Tim Duncan (retirement), Boris Diaw (trade)Skinny: It’s hard to imagine a Spurs team without Duncan. But outside him and Diaw, the most important parts of this well-oiled team remain intact. Gregg Popovich’s club once again should be the best team in the West not named Golden State.

2. Memphis Grizzlies (46-36, 4th)Key Additions:Chandler Parsons (free agency)Key Departures:Lance Stephenson (free agency)Skinny: The Grizzlies were absolutely decimated by injuries last season, and Parsons missing the season opener as he recovers from knee surgery is an ominous start to 2016-17. When healthy, though, Memphis is one of the top four teams in the West.

3. Houston Rockets (40-42, 9th)Key Additions:Ryan Anderson (free agency), Eric Gordon (free agency)Key Departures:Dwight Howard (free agency)Skinny: Losing Howard is addition by subtraction. But the bottom of the West playoff picture figures to be crowded, and James Harden doesn’t have enough talent around him to push this team into the playoffs.

4. Dallas Mavericks (39-43, 10th)Key Additions: Harrison Barnes (free agency), Andrew Bogut (free agency)Key Departures: Chandler Parsons (free agent)Skinny: There’s reason for optimism in Dallas after it poached Barnes and Bogut from the Warriors, but the rest of the West is just too good for the Mavs to sneak into the postseason.

5. New Orleans Pelicans (24-58, 14th)Key Additions:Buddy Hield (draft), Lance Stephenson (free agency)Key Departures: Ryan Anderson (free agency), Eric Gordon (free agency)Skinny: Can we just put Anthony Davis in a bubble already? The injury bug keeps biting the über-talented big man, who is essential to any success this team wants to have. At least we’ll get a good look at Hield.

NORTHWEST DIVISION1. Portland Trail Blazers (46-36, 5th)Key Additions: Evan Turner (free agency), Festus Ezeli (free agency)Key Departures:NoneSkinny: Almost everyone slept on the Blazers last season, and they got burned. The West would be wise to take Portland seriously this season, as Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum represent one of the best backcourts in the business.

3. Oklahoma City Thunder (44-37, 7th)Key Additions: Victor Oladipo (trade), Domantas Sabonis (draft)Key Departures: Kevin Durant (free agency), Serge Ibaka (trade)Skinny:The supporting cast is good enough and Russell Westbrook is angry enough for this team to return to the playoffs without KD. Here’s hoping they fall to the 8th seed and play the Warriors in the opening round of the playoffs.

4. Minnesota Timberwolves (43-39, 8th)Key Additions:Kris Dunn (draft), Cole Aldrich (free agency)Key Departures:Kevin Garnett (retirement)Skinny: The future rapidly is becoming the present in Minnesota. The Wolves might be the NBA’s most exciting team to watch this season outside Golden State, and a playoff berth is a very realistic goal.

5. Denver Nuggets (35-47, 11th)Key Additions:Jamal Murray (draft), Juan Hernangomez (draft)Key Departures: NoneSkinny: The Nuggets could have a nice young nucleus on their hands with Murray, Emmanuel Mudiay and Nikola Jokic. But success still is at least a few seasons away.

Kobe Bryant and Luke Walton both have had plenty of reasons to pop bottles over the years. But when Walton was a rookie with the Los Angeles Lakers, Bryant taught him there’s a time and place for everything.

Walton, who’s now the head coach of the Lakers, recently joined Bleacher Report’s “Open Run” podcast, where he talked about how Bryant once dominated him at practice for showing up smelling like alcohol.

“I probably had too much to drink the night before,” Walton said. “So I came in, I was a rookie, I felt good, and they could smell some alcohol on me, and Kobe informed the rest of the team that nobody was allowed to help me on defense, and that I had to guard him the entire practice.”

“The Black Mamba” was notoriously hard on opponents and teammates alike during his 20-year playing career, something Walton learned the hard way.

“And I was laughing at first, like ‘Oh, this is funny,’ ” Walton recalled. “But in Kobe’s mind, in his eyes, he was like ‘No, I see and smell weakness, I’m going to destroy you today.’ He taught me a lesson. He probably scored 70-something in practice that day, and I’m begging for help, but none of my teammates would help. His killer instinct, and his work ethic will stick with me forever.”

The 16-year veteran agreed to sign a one-year, non-guaranteed contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, The Vertical’s Shams Charania reported Wednesday, citing sources. World Peace will join the Lakers for training camp and compete with Zach Auguste, Julian Jacobs and Travis Wear for a spot on their roster.

World Peace, 36, has been working out with the Lakers in recent weeks and apparently proved himself worthy of another shot with the team. He’s ready and willing to work with first-year head coach Luke Walton, also 36, who once was one of his teammates, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.

Metta World Peace on playing for his former teammate, Luke Walton, "Luke's always been like a coach even when he was playing."

The Lakers used World Peace sparingly in 35 games last season, but he impressed team officials by supporting and mentoring his younger teammates. The Lakers probably hope he has the same impact behind the scenes in 2016-17.

World Peace sat out the 2014-15 NBA season before making a surprise return to Los Angeles last summer.

He previously played four seasons with the Lakers and helped them win the NBA championship in 2010.

Although most expected World Peace to retire by now, we know to expect the unexpected from the player formerly known as Ron Artest.

Shaquille O’Neal is the best center and most dominant NBA player an entire generation of fans will ever see, and that might hold true for as long as millennials live.

He enters the National Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., on Friday night, along with fellow 2016 inductees Yao Ming and Allen Iverson, among others.

O’Neal’s induction marks the end of an era. He’s the last great NBA center — big men who dominated in the paint and didn’t hang around the perimeter in the type of small-ball lineups that are prevalent today.

“There’s two types of big men,” O’Neal said. “There’s the Dirk Nowitzki big man and there’s the real physical big man, which is good. That’s not a knock on Dirk Nowitzki, he’s one of the top players in the game. That’s just how he plays. But me personally, I don’t like seven footers shooting three-pointers.”

There are many stats to show how unstoppable O’Neal was, particularly in his prime, which I’d label as 1999 through 2004. He won three championships in that span — 2000 through 2002 — and here are his per-game averages from the NBA Finals.

His 2000 NBA Finals is arguably the best championship performance in league history and one we’ll probably never see again from a center as long as the league continues to prioritize 3-point shooting at all positions.

O’Neal’s massive strength and size certainly helped him crush opposing centers, but he also had very underrated skill, whether it was his array of post moves, ability to run the floor and even handle the ball in transition. He could play a finesse game when the situation warranted it.

No center after O’Neal, and few of the guys who played next to him aside from Hall of Famers Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson, come close to matching his brilliance. Dwight Howard had a few superstar-caliber seasons with the Orlando Magic in the late 2000s, but other than that, the center position has lacked star players.

DeMarcus Cousins is without question the best center in 2016, but he’s nowhere near as dominant as O’Neal.

It’s difficult to find a championship team from the 1940s through 2006 that didn’t have a premier center. Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls teams in the 1990s might be an exception, but Dennis Rodman made up for it by being one of the best rebounders of all time.

A star center is no longer required to win the NBA Finals. The Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers, who’ve met in the last two Finals series and could do so for the next three or so seasons, have given little resources to the center position. All of the superstars with max contracts are at other positions.

Here are the starting centers of the last 10 champions. It’s a list of mostly average players who weren’t the first, second or third option on their teams, with the exception of Chris Bosh, who’s more of a power forward.

NBA players attempted more 3-point shots last season than any previous campaign, and it’s hard to see that style of play changing anytime soon with the way coaches set up their lineups and playbooks. Centers no longer play with their back to the basket anymore — it’s always facing the basket and emphasizing shooting range out to the arc.

As the league continues its 3-point trend, we should take some time to appreciate O’Neal and his place in league history. He’s the last of an near-extinct type of NBA player from a time (1980 through 1998) when basketball was at its height in terms of excitement and quality of play.

Recently retired Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant is one of the most competitive players the NBA has ever seen.

With the Golden State Warriors assembling a super team this summer by adding free-agent superstar Kevin Durant to a roster that already included Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, many fans already are penciling in the Dubs as 2016-17 NBA champions.

In a recent interview on “The Jim Rome Show,” it seemed like Bryant was a little disappointed he won’t get a chance to stop the Warriors on their journey toward greatness.

“I would have thought less about myself if I looked at that move and said, ‘That’s unfair,'” Bryant said.

“If you’re a real competitor, you look at that and say, ‘OK, lace ’em up. Let’s go. I don’t care how many players you have over there; we’re still going to take you down.'”

Hopefully this is the attitude the rest of the league adopts when it comes to the Warriors. If not, it could be a boring season as Golden State dominates the competition.

Despite arriving to the United States as a highly touted prospect drafted sixth overall by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2007, the now-28-year-old forward never became a quality pro player. He averaged just 2.6 points per game for the Dallas Mavericks in his final NBA season.

This move doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense for the Lakers, who would be better served giving Jianlian’s potential playing time to younger, better players who need to develop.

Jianlian most recently has played for China in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Derek Fisher might don a uniform — rather than a suit — the next time he roams an NBA sideline.

Fisher, fired as head coach of the New York Knicks back in February, posted a workout video Tuesday night that kicked off speculation the former NBA point guard is considering a return to the hardwood as a player. Sources told ESPN on Wednesday that Fisher, who turns 42 next week, indeed has been “exploring options and expressing interest in playing again.”

This is surprising news, to say the least. But at the end of the day, it might be nothing more than weird offseason chatter, though Fisher didn’t rule out a comeback Wednesday when clarifying his situation on Twitter.

If an NBA team expresses interest, I'm open to dialogue, but at the moment I have no steadfast plan to play again. (2/2)

In other words, Fisher isn’t actively pursuing an NBA comeback, but he’d consider the idea if the right opportunity came along. Given that he hasn’t played since the 2013-14 season, however, it’s hard to envision a scenario in which he plays again for an NBA franchise. Perhaps his best bet would be to play overseas — a source told ESPN that Fisher also was looking into playing in the Chinese professional league — but he didn’t give any indication in his tweets that such was a consideration.

Fisher played 18 seasons in the NBA before hanging up the sneakers in favor of dress shoes. Most of those came as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom he won five NBA titles.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rarely demonstrated his funny side during his basketball career, but his sense of humor was on full display Thursday night … at Donald Trump’s expense.

The NBA legend started his speech at the Democratic National Convention by introducing himself as “Michael Jordan.” Abdul-Jabbar told the crowd he did so because Trump, the Republican nominee for U.S. president, might have trouble identifying all-time basketball greats.

Kobe Bryant might have made a name for himself wearing purple and gold, but it seems he likes sporting scarlet red, too.

The former Laker stopped by the Ferrari factory and Fiorano Circuit in Maranello, Italy, on Thursday. While there, he received a private tour of the facilities, and even got a chance to lap Fiorano in a Ferrari F12 TDF.

Photo via Nike

Bryant was in Italy as part of a tour in multiple cities in Europe to interact with young athletes outside the U.S.

Photo via Nike

Bryant’s family moved to Italy when he was 6 years old and that is where he first learned to play basketball. After leaving Maranello, Bryant stopped by one of the basketball courts where he first played the game to speak with some local children.

Perhaps if Beyoncé made more songs, Dwight Howard would be a better free-throw shooter.

Like many big men, Howard has struggled from the free-throw line throughout his NBA career. One of the many tricks he employed with hopes of improving shooting from the free-throw line was singing Beyoncé songs. Howard revealed the method to ESPN’s Tom Haberstroh in an article published Thursday.

“I used to sing Beyoncé songs, that was my thing,” Howard told Haberstroh. “I told her about it when I saw her. I said, ‘When I sing your song, I make my free throws.’ She seemed to like that.”

Howard has hit just 57 percent of his free throws during his 12 years in the NBA, with his best conversion rate coming in his rookie year (67 percent) and his worst coming last season (49 percent).

How that compares to Beyoncé’s album or single releases is beyond our understanding. What’s clear is that Howard has moved on to other strategies, and they haven’t helped him shoot free throws more effectively.

Maybe it’s time for them to collaborate — either Howard joins Beyonce in the studio or she meets him on the hardcourt — for the sake of the Atlanta Hawks big man’s livelihood at the charity stripe.